No the old thread was not ressurected; We could do that and it’s up to forumers to do it. I didn’t work on my skin shader or other SSS shader lately so I don’t have a lot to tell yet. I just do some renderings to see how my shader reacts. I plan to modify them to use the point based scripting. But a bit later. However you could ressurect it any time I’ll come with pleasure

Alright =) I’m currently trying to make a simple procedural shader for skin, inspired by Indigone’s stuff for Carrara, so when I have something interesting, I’ll resurrect the thread if no one does it before me =)
And you just gave me an idea to test photon mapping in 4.5 =)

Takeo.Kensei - 20 July 2012 01:13 PM

About the simple Occlusion light : I’ve read the script again and made a Rib export to be sure. This light is just a simple light which can give occlusion. No more so you should disable it otherwise you have an additional light. You can see in the “shaders” directory that there is a new shader called “pointocculsionlight.sdl” (yep saw the Typo too but don’t fix it it’s also in the scripts or fix both) I don’t use it as UE is more complete and it seems that it can also use point cloud.

Thanks!.. It’s still strange why it does what it does to me - last time I disabled it, AO seemed to disappear.
And what about UE, will it use point cloud if I use the scripted renderer? Or is there a switch in its own controls now? I’m asking because I could not find anything like that.

Takeo.Kensei - 20 July 2012 01:13 PM

I have the feeling rendertimes have a lot improved with it but I’m not sure as my own shaders are not yet optimized to work with point clouds. For what I’ve tested the scripts work flawlessly. I’ve even copy pasted my DS4.5 directory to my notebook and it works without problem although I did not install it. I just installed default contents and that’s all.

I’m going to do a reinstall anyway - the thing is, I installed it in the same folder on the removable HDD that 4.xx used to reside in, and the installer didn’t prompt me to remove the older version. On the one hand, there should be nothing that could hinder proper execution of scripts… on the other hand, who knows.

Takeo.Kensei - 20 July 2012 01:13 PM

I don’t think there will be an “edit” button because I see no point in that. You have to write your own scripts anyway or partially based on Daz’s ones if you wand to get something new.

Yeah that makes sense… I’m using shader mixer lights more and more, anyway, to control the DSM samples individually rather than the same value per scene.

Alright =) I’m currently trying to make a simple procedural shader for skin, inspired by Indigone’s stuff for Carrara, so when I have something interesting, I’ll resurrect the thread if no one does it before me =)
And you just gave me an idea to test photon mapping in 4.5 =)

Happy to read that hope to see your renders soon

Mustakettu85 - 21 July 2012 01:23 PM

Thanks!.. It’s still strange why it does what it does to me - last time I disabled it, AO seemed to disappear.
And what about UE, will it use point cloud if I use the scripted renderer? Or is there a switch in its own controls now? I’m asking because I could not find anything like that.

It’s written in the DS4.5 changelog. However only UE takes a little advantage with point cloud. The standard DS lights don’t and that is a pity. I’ve just tested a little scene. I had a 2 min gain on a close up portrait with hairs. So if you have other lights than UE with raytraced shadows, render time are the same. There is also the fact that the occlusion with point cloud is darker and softer so render is not quite the same

It’s written in the DS4.5 changelog. However only UE takes a little advantage with point cloud. The standard DS lights don’t and that is a pity. I’ve just tested a little scene. I had a 2 min gain on a close up portrait with hairs. So if you have other lights than UE with raytraced shadows, render time are the same. There is also the fact that the occlusion with point cloud is darker and softer so render is not quite the same

Thanks for testing! Please bear with me a little, I’m not feeling well tonight so my thoughts are muddled somewhat: so, in order to gain any advantage of the point cloud using UE, I need to use only the UE (and it should be set to do AO not ambient) in the scene and run the scripted renderer, - is it correct?

I have been using the new version for all of one day . . . so my comments are preliminary at best. (I’m using the 64-bit version with Windows 7.) Thoughts so far: a) I have issues with saving files - I see someone else has already commented on this (i.e. not recognizing the file path etc). b) The program takes forever to start up for some reason (like . . . one minute or more?) c) Once it’s running it works great . . . very smooth etc. I like it.

Thanks for testing! Please bear with me a little, I’m not feeling well tonight so my thoughts are muddled somewhat: so, in order to gain any advantage of the point cloud using UE, I need to use only the UE (and it should be set to do AO not ambient) in the scene and run the scripted renderer, - is it correct?

Yup almost. You can still use other lights and set the shadows to deep shadow map. From what I’ve seen the big gain is when you render transmapped Hairs.

what’s the point on being stucked on the 4.5.0.49 when they’re more versions available?
btw this is not a perfect version due to being a RC, so, bring the other releases please.

It’s probably because they don’t want to admit that 4.5 is still a beta and not really a Release Candidate at all. After all, if you have ten or twenty Release Candidates then it doesn’t look too good.

Good practice dictates no more than 3 RCs, but a properly beta-tested and stable code product should only need 1 before going final!

Full uninstall. How do I do a full uninstall of DS? I want to start fresh, but when I uninstall it all the content is left and missing when I do a reinstall. So now I have all these broken items that say they are there but only have question mark where they should show up.

Wish I knew! 4.5 RC2 is OK, but I still have odd issues with some older Poser models that open fine in Carrara and Poser Pro 2010. It’d be nice to see if any of the bazillion changes since RC2 fixed the issues.

I am trying to uninstall my current version and reinstall if fresh so I can clean up all my old content problems.

Content (except what is installed with DS4), CMS database, and content directories do not get uninstalled when you uninstall DS4 (since you may just be upgrading). If you need to remove old content directories from DS4’s list, go to “Edit > Preferences > Content Library > Content Directory Manager”. If you want to reset the CMS database, go to “Content Library > Options Menu > DB Maintenance > Reset Database”, or choose a different location for the databases when you reinstall.

I am trying to uninstall my current version and reinstall if fresh so I can clean up all my old content problems.

Content (except what is installed with DS4), CMS database, and content directories do not get uninstalled when you uninstall DS4 (since you may just be upgrading). If you need to remove old content directories from DS4’s list, go to “Edit > Preferences > Content Library > Content Directory Manager”. If you want to reset the CMS database, go to “Content Library > Options Menu > DB Maintenance > Reset Database”, or choose a different location for the databases when you reinstall.